The Magic Room
by Luciferian Principle
Summary: Charlie discovers a horrible secret in the factory, and also a mindaltering addiction named Wonka. WonkaCharlie chanslash.


Author: Lucifer  
Rating: R  
Warnings: young Charlie, and uh….manipulation.  
Summary: Charlie discovers a horrible secret in the factory, and also a mind-altering addiction named Wonka.  
Note: This fic was inspired greatly by a pic by AndreAla-Rae which can be found here: www (dot) deviantart (dot) com (slash) view (slash) 20752051 Give her love!

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After agreeing to come to the factory, the Buckets, and Charlie especially, learned that often things there weren't always as they seemed. Some might say they learned this the hard way.

The family had gotten on peacefully enough for the first few days. Their home in the middle of the chocolate room now had a beautiful view, and they could enjoy that beauty everywhere they went. The grass was sweet, the trees were too, there was plenty of food. Mr. Bucket kept his job, perhaps out of pride alone, feeling he should still help with what little he could. Mrs. Bucket even began to look for one herself. The grandparents were pleased and happy. Grandpa Joe would still take care of them even if Mr. and Mrs. Bucket were at work. The Oompa Loompas still snickered at them whenever they were happened upon, and the Buckets still couldn't figure out what the matter was, but they left it be. They simply chalked it up to "all those dog gone cocoa beans". They stayed out of the family's way for the most part, only lending a hand with things when instructed to by Mr. Wonka, but the family didn't mind, they were certain the little workers were very busy.

Charlie and Mr. Wonka spent all hours of the day together, at first learning about the way the factory was run, the process of invention, production, and a brief lecture on sales management, which Wonka didn't care to talk about for very long because he didn't care much for the department as a whole. It just wasn't to his taste. He was almost strictly concerned with the way things were produced in the factory.

There were things they saw that Charlie found completely unexplainable. Mr. Wonka showed him how the chocolate bars were wrapped, packed, and sent along into trucks to be shipped off to the world for instance. It seemed mostly normal at first, but on the way down the production line, things got gradually stranger. Before they were wrapped, they were then flung about in every direction, heading for different destinations of paper. Charlie was amazed that they didn't fly out of the mechanical arms holding them, but he couldn't explain the next part, no matter how hard he tried to reason it. The chocolate simply floated on down to it's place in balloons. They were perfect. Exact. Not one out of place. No wind, no thermals, no slight angle of miscalculation in any one of them, all floating along in the air in a great giant spiral. He was afraid to breath heavily while watching it. Needless to say it wasn't the only unnatural thing he witnessed in the midst of completely, or somewhat completely, normal candy making.

When Charlie asked about it, Mr. Wonka seemed very pleased. Not in the usual, over excited, caffienated, somebody-had-way-too-much-sugar-this-morning way either. He grew very calm and collected, placed both his hands atop his candy-filled walking stick and gazed down at Charlie with a serene smile on his face. The boy could _feel_ the excitement radiating from him. He then explained to Charlie that everything in the factory was one part production, two parts obsession, three parts willingness to take what you want (he winked at this), four parts imagination, and underneath everything just a smidgen of magic. His eyes glimmered in delight and his gaze never faltered as Charlie ran the words through his head trying to gauge their meaning.

"Mr. Wonka, you don't mean you actually do magic here?" Charlie said slowly, thinking carefully as he said it. To many people, Charlie included, what Wonka did in this factory _was_ magic, but he meant magic literally.

"I think we've finished far enough in showing you the nitty gritty details of how this place runs, Charlie," Wonka said in that peculiar tone someone uses when it seems as though they're changing the subject but not really. "There is only one more thing to see. My dear boy," Wonka said the last part softly, not quite in conjunction with the part before it. "It is the very core of the factory, far greater even than the inventing room. It is what keeps everything here…alive," he said as his face lit up, quite like the way it did when he and Charlie and Grandpa Joe flew through the tallest stack of the factory and everyone thought they would certainly fall to their doom. Charlie noticed the little workers within earshot of them had gone still. "It is not for the faint of heart," Wonka added.

"Will you show me?" Charlie asked, both a little fearful and excited about the idea, and also of Wonka's new demeanor. Anything that could change the man's already off-balance persona in the slightest must be something quite serious. The only other thing Charlie had ever seen able to touch Wonka like that was the thought of his father, whom they hadn't actually seen since the visit to his home.

Without another word, Mr. Wonka held out his hand to Charlie, an offer he'd never given before, and Charlie accepted it. He took them to the chocolate room where they strolled along until they reached the lazily flowing river. Here Mr. Wonka got down on his knees in front of Charlie and gave him a very serious look. It was the one Charlie had thought he'd caught glimpses of at other points in their partnership, and even before it. Every time one of the other four children failed Wonka's test in the tour Charlie could've sworn he saw that look in Wonka's eyes, but only for a moment. He was never sure if it was real or if he just caught the light the wrong way, until now, with that look staring at him eye to eye. Intimidating as it was, Charlie's curiosity outweighed any uneasiness he felt. No, he definitely was not going to back out of this.

"There is just one thing you have to promise me," Wonka said softly. "You can't tell anyone about this." He drug out the word "anyone" just a little more than was usual. Perhaps it was just that odd tone of his, or perhaps he was hinting about the people Charlie felt he could trust with any secrets he ever had.

Charlie looked into Wonka's eyes, his expression, his posture, trusting his own instincts to answer for him.

"Alright."

"Good," Wonka replied. "Now…" He adjusted his hat a little more snuggly on top of his head, grasped his cane a bit more tightly, then reached out and grasped Charlie around the shoulders. "Hold your breath," he said as he dragged both the boy and himself backward, toppling them into the chocolate river.

Charlie was surprised to say the least. He caught himself trying to say something just as he saw the direction Wonka appeared to be falling, taking him along with, but he couldn't stop them in time. They hit the chocolate in the exact same way Charlie had watched Augustus fall in. He got a mouthful of it and spluttered, feeling some of it come up his nose, burning along the way. Augustus' horrible fate flashed through his mind, but he counted himself lucky, before they'd fallen in he'd seen the pipe all the way on the other side of the room. It wouldn't be coming for them any time soon. His relief was short lived. After he'd gotten a much needed mouthful of air, he felt himself being pulled downwards. Wonka's arm was still tightly wrapped around his midsection and though the couldn't see the man, he could barely see anything through the chocolate mess, he knew it wasn't Wonka that was pulling him under. He could feel Wonka being pulled under _with_ him. He tried struggling, swimming for the surface, but Wonka's arm tightened. It was even joined by the man's other arm, and the cane. He wanted to trust Wonka, he really did. He wanted to trust him more than he wanted a lot of things in the world, much more, but he was going to drown if he didn't get air soon. Despite all his efforts, they were still sinking rapidly. The chocolate around them was getting thicker with every meter they descended and Charlie began to fear the pressure as much as he feared the fate of drowning. Wonka was managing with more and more success to restrain his movements, aided by the heavy chocolate around them, and, just when he thought he couldn't take it anymore, he felt lips cover his own. A taste of chocolate. Then air, rushing into his lungs. He felt grateful, and almost astonished, then very, very faint.

When Charlie awoke, he was in the chocolate room. He could tell through slightly fuzzy and barely open eyes by the ceiling. He had an aftertaste of several different flavors of chocolate in his mouth, and he could feel the grass around him. It was soft and slightly mushy under his weight. He could tell he'd been lying there for a while. He sat up slowly, wary of aggravating any aches and pains he might've gotten from blacking out. His nose and the back of his throat felt awfully raw, no doubt from inhaling chocolate, but once he had gotten himself halfway up, those thoughts faded from his mind. He wasn't in the chocolate room.

At least….he didn't think so. This room looked more like a swamp than anything else he could think of. It was a swamp of chocolate, and all the things that were in the chocolate room he was used to. The sugar grass was here, but it was longer, overgrown and wild-looking, the river boiled and spilled out of itself instead of flowing serenely like it was supposed to. Candies were growing out of everything, but in gnarled and twisted shapes. They looked like infestations. The more Charlie stared at it, the more he realized how much of a double it was to the room he was just in before he'd gone down the river, and yet it wasn't. It couldn't be. The candy here looked almost rotten in places. It even felt different.

His uneasiness was growing, and to make matters worse he swore he caught glimpses of things moving out of the corners of his eyes, only to find nothing but misshapen candy when he looked. Ultimately that is what made him decide to stand up and at least see where he was, if not find a way out.

He picked himself up off the ground, noticing that all in all after what he just went through, he was almost completely dry. His skin wasn't caked in chocolate like one would expect it to be. There were bits of it in his hair and over his clothes which had been torn in a few places somehow. He wondered if he could find Mr. Wonka. All this was very strange, and he couldn't shake that uneasy feeling.

He wandered through the chocolate room, looking for it's usual exits and entryways. Three of them he found had been in the path of some kind of overgrown purple candy vine, blocking his way. He hadn't even managed to see through any parts of it. Digging and pushing it aside was useless, and under the circumstances he wasn't sure if he wanted to try eating it.

He was beginning to grow exasperated. Why had Wonka left? He wasn't going to be stuck here until the man came back for him, was he? He gave up on wiggling his way through the vine-candy and looked around the room again. He found a somewhat clear spot near the river and sat down, deciding to inspect his slightly wear-worn clothing while waiting for either an idea or person to come to him and help him out. He noticed several new holes in his jeans, and the newly frayed sleeves of his sweater. His mom might not be too pleased about this, and suddenly he felt a pang of guilt as he realized he wouldn't be able to tell her how he'd gotten this way in the first place. He'd promised Mr. Wonka…. Perhaps he could get the Oompa Loompas to help him. They seemed to be good at everything, and judging from Wonka's fine clothes, sewing was no exception.

The river gurgled loudly, startling Charlie just a bit more than it should have. Not a moment later, he swore he heard a soft bout of high-pitched laughter. This startled him even more than the river, and he looked around frantically to see where it was coming from.

"Who's there?" he called.

"What are _you_ doing here? Bucket, was it?" the voice replied.

"Where are you?" Charlie asked, ignoring the voice's question until he could get a look at its owner.

"I'm down here, you idiot." It replied.

Charlie looked down at the grass and candy plants around him, eyes sweeping over the area until they rested on a tiny figure, tall as the mushroom he was standing next to, whom Charlie thought he'd never see again.

His eyes widened. "Mike?"

"Who else? Unless you've turned several other people into Barbie dolls recently," he retorted accusingly, as though it had been Charlie who had put him in this situation.

"What?" Charlie was astonished, "What are you doing here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" was his only reply.

Charlie was just about to answer that he had no idea where he was, but before he could, the ground underneath him decided to move, tumbling him off itself. Mike seemed to have been almost prepared for that, as he remained on the ledge by hopping quite nimbly. Once again he laughed shrewdly at Charlie's misfortune. Charlie might have been a bit angry at Mike's behavior, if he had not noticed that the grassy ledge he'd just been sitting on was now moaning, and clearly resembled a face. It had droopy eyes and a gapping mouth, and Charlie couldn't help find a semblance between it and Augustus Gloop. He was horrified and scrambled backwards, not wanting to be anywhere near the thing. He toppled over something that squelched in the process, and fell over again. When he looked down, he found a normal sized Veruca, hair disheveled, chocolate caked over her once pretty face, and gnarled candy canes growing out of her hands where her fingers should have been. She was half buried in the ground of chocolate and sugar grass, and seemed to be desperately trying to crawl her way out, without success. She had a crazed look on her face and was grabbing at anything that she could latch onto to possibly pull herself out. When her hands began to reach for Charlie's ankles, he quickly realized that nearest something was himself. He rolled away from her, barely in time and jumped clumsily to his feet.

He was near terrified at this sudden discovery.

Across the river he could see what he had thought earlier was a giant blue candy, was actually Violet, rolling around, trying to push herself every which way, or perhaps gain some balance that seemed just beyond her grasp.

They were all here.

Charlie, in shock, started to back up once again taking in the scene before him. He hadn't noticed them there when he'd tried to find a way out. Admittedly, they did blend in with the scenery around them quite amazingly, like they were gradually becoming part of the room. They all looked frightened to death.

A hand placed on his shoulder made him jump and whirl about, almost expecting to see Veruca's greedy fingers ready to drag him into the ground with her. Instead what he found was Mr. Wonka.

"Isn't it beautiful?" he asked the boy with a twinkle in his eye and a grin on his lips.

Charlie felt rooted to the ground, jaw slack, and frozen in place. If finding the other four ticket winners floundering about helplessly in this room had shocked him, it wasn't much compared to his disbelief at Wonka's lightheartedness. For a while he could only stare at the man who was now gazing around the filthy room with wonder in his eyes.

When he finally found his voice, he discovered a twinge of fear had come with it. Perhaps it was not necessarily of Wonka, for that is what he'd have liked to say, but deep down perhaps so. "Mike--Veruca, the others--" he realized he was stammering a bit, "What happened to them?" He could faintly hear Mike screeching insults at them from the ground.

Wonka's smile didn't falter. He offered his arm to Charlie, placing it around his shoulders and guiding him to an overgrown and rather uneven path along which they began a slow stroll, away from the ruckus Mike was causing and Veruca's unnerving sounds. Charlie could have sworn she was trying to talk, but for some reason was unable to.

"They're becoming part of the factory, my dear Charlie," Wonka told him.

"How is that possible?" Charlie asked, trying to calm himself down. "We saw them leave; I watched them walk out the gate."

"Mmmm, yeah, and no," Wonka answered brightly. "You saw their bodies and selves leave, but their…" Wonka waved his hands around searching for the right word, "_essences_ are all right here."

Charlie wondered if that was anything like a person's soul; however it did give him a glimmer of optimism. "Does that mean then, that they're not really here?"

"Not at all!" Wonka replied, "It means that they're not really _there_, or wherever else they would normally be right now if they weren't such lovely guests in my factory. They help keep it going you know."

Charlie's heart sank. "But, Mr. Wonka…" He tugged on the man's sleeve, catching him and halting their process along the path. "They're hurting…" He didn't understand how the man couldn't see it.

"Oh…." Mr. Wonka calmed down considerably, his face taking on a more somber look. He got back down on his knees in front of the boy, the same way he did before he drug the both of them into the chocolate river in what now seemed like ages ago to Charlie. "They're getting what they deserve, Charlie," he said softly. He had the most open and sincere expression and his eyes were the most beautiful Charlie had ever seen. It all tied a knot in his throat just to look at Mr. Wonka. He felt torn in this moment. His love and admiration for the candyman were pulling him in one direction, his sensibility pulling in another.

Maybe it was being in this room that was doing something strange to his senses, influencing him somehow, but he could slowly feel the former winning out. He wanted to help them, he was sure of that, but he wanted nothing more than for Mr. Wonka to wrap his arms around him and tell him it was alright, putting an end to this horrible discovery somehow. And so, when Wonka put his hands on Charlie's arms to comfort him, that's what he did. He fell to his knees in front of the chocolatier and wrapped his arms around the man's waist and buried his head into his shoulder. Wonka had never liked touching much, but Charlie needed it now, at the first point in his life that his morality was losing to his affection.

"They're not all bad…" Charlie said softly, as though he were pleading with Mr. Wonka, but he thought maybe he was really pleading with himself. "They shouldn't be like this…" The Charlie up until this morning would have done the right thing, he knew that. He was still the same Charlie, but all he wanted to do was be safe here with Mr. Wonka, and with the help of the man's soft voice and gentle hands along his back this room didn't seem so bad anymore. He knew in the back of his mind that he was seeking comfort from the very thing that had been scaring him so, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to pull away. The man's very presence soothed his tension.

After some time like that, Charlie calmed down considerably. He felt tired, and perhaps Mr. Wonka did as well because he laid down on the grass with Charlie. He kissed the boy's lips softly, and Charlie was so surprised that his heart leapt into his throat, but he liked it. When Mr. Wonka pulled back there was a light in his eyes that had not been there a moment ago. It was a happiness that Charlie felt so special to be a part of; his affection could be returned. And just then he remembered drowning in the chocolate river, with Mr. Wonka wrapped around him, and the feel of those same lips, giving him life and purpose.

"I would never let you end up like those children, Charlie," Mr. Wonka said.

Charlie felt wonderful. He wanted to kiss Mr. Wonka again, and so he did. It lasted longer this time, and Wonka pulled Charlie closer and deepened the kiss, swiping his tongue along Charlie's lips until he got the hint and soon they were tasting each other as though they were some kind of delicious candy. It was addicting. Wonka's hands ran along his skin, making him shiver in their wake, and finally he began to understand his attraction to the man a little better. And likewise, he hoped, Wonka's attraction to him.

Then Mr. Wonka moved so that he was almost on top of Charlie and ground their hips together. That was a feeling Charlie wouldn't soon forget. It continued as Wonka brought his mouth to Charlie's neck and stroked his hair. By now Charlie was finding it wonderfully difficult to breath. Wonka paused only a moment to take off his gloves and then his hands were back on Charlie's skin, gliding smoothly under his shirt and leaving trails of goose-bumps behind them. His tongue soon followed, making Charlie blush more than just a bit, but by the time Wonka's hands found their way between his legs, Charlie swore he forgot how to blush.

When Wonka's tongue followed his hands for the second time, Charlie forgot every bad thing he had seen that day.

From then on, every time he visited that room with Mr. Wonka, Charlie felt himself fall just a little more. It showed on him physically; his clothes were a constant mess, his hair could never be combed straight, it baffled his parents, and he didn't care. Mr. Wonka's appearance changed as well every time they entered that room. Like Charlie, his hair became nothing but disarray, his clothes became darker, and his eyes always danced with delight. He stopped pretending with a lot of things, and though some of these things might have disturbed Charlie before, he now found he was beginning to share in the man's love for them. It was like watching Wonka's glee at seeing Veruca tossed down the incinerator so long ago, and being able to join in on the secret.

Charlie's parents became worried. They sensed a change in their son that they couldn't put their finger on. Charlie rarely came to the Bucket home for meals anymore, and was never seen at bedtime. Gradually he stopped visiting their home altogether. They became so upset that Wonka decided to lock them in the chocolate room for good. He did it with his brightest smile, and Charlie thought that there was nothing more beautiful in all the world.


End file.
